Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Polygon released a video last week of one of its reviewers playing the first 30 minutes of the new Doom. But it wasn’t the review that caused a storm. The reviewer’s playing was so bad that Polygon had to disable ratings and comments on the YouTube video to save themselves the wrath of online vitriol.

One fan even posted a video to YouTube highlighting the reviewer’s incompetence.

The reviewer picked to play the demo is someone who earns a living testing out video games, and yet he or she plays this shooter like a four-year-old. And it’s not the only time that reviewers from Polygon, which is part of Vox Media, have simply quit playing a game because it too hard.

All of this begs the question: Are the site’s reviewers skilled enough as gamers to be evaluating a wide swath of gaming titles?

This is horrifically embarrassing. I mean, I haven't been a professional game reviewer in over a decade and I am MORTIFIED for this person. About the only thing he didn't do was run into a wall and get stuck there with his nose pressed against it. Let's just say skills and standards have dropped considerably from the time TC and Scorpio and I were reviewing for CGW, and Paul the Pro Player was reviewing for Game Informer.

It's also conclusive evidence of pretty much everything #GamerGate ever said about game journos.

139 Comments:

Well, as demonstrated by my past performance in the first iteration of Doom, first person shooters simply aren't my genre and I'm in no position to throw stones. However, my limitations were vision and reaction time, not basic tactics or strategy. It sounds like this person can't even manage those.

It probably doesn't help any that by the time Doom came out I was already in my mid 30's and well past my peak reaction time.

It's just another subculture that SJW hipsters glommed on for whatever reason.

Polygon and other sites are chock full of liberal arts grads trying to poz up gaming with excessive coverage of shitty socjus walking simulators such as GONE HOME (10/10! - Polygon) and EVERYBODY'S GONE TO THE RAPTURE.

While the display from Polygon is utterly humiliating... the Doom game play does have a short learning curve if you're used to games like Battlefield, Modern Warfare, or even Destiny... because you cannot change the aim point on screen. Its like hip firing all the time. No for even a decent player that should have taken maybe 5 minutes to get used to. But this dude obviously never got used to it. It really did look like a complete noob trying to play an FPS for the first time.

But hey... these are the people who write articles about not knowing how to turn a PS4 on.

I had a good laugh at that the other day. Being charitable though, it looked like they were playing a console version and couldnt get to grips with the controller - I'd probably be the same as every FPS Ive played has been K+M, Im utterly hopeless with a controller. That said, what Polygon put out was highly unprofessional for an organisation supposedly centred around video games, and just goes to show that they have their heads so far up their narrative that they couldnt find their backsides with a BFG-9K and a taclight. They would have done better to grab a random teen off the street and wrote the article based off how they played the game.

I'm not-so-bad at go so I have long been familiar with the tooth-grinding problem of journalists writing about games they know less than nothing about. Obviously this particularly galling from people who are paid to write about games. But to play devil's advocate: is the median purchaser of Doom playing more like the Polygon reviewer or more like the expert? If the former, I'm not sure whether this level of incompetence will actually hurt Polygon's performance as a media property. The general trend in journalism is that those who serve up coverage which massages the ignorance of their readers, profit.

That's how my dad played the first time he used a twin-stick controller to play an FPS. This was many years after he played Doom and Wolfenstein when I was a kid but mostly preferred turn-based/real-time tactical games. I can't think of many people with even limited experience with video games that would play like that let alone someone who is PAID to do so.

There's another part where he/she shoots a medical kit with a shotgun before missing his next shot at an enemy. And yeah, it's definitely on easy. I played the Beta a few weeks ago and it was pretty fun but I'll leave off a little while before I get it.

My initial though on watching him play is that he is jerking those joysticks like he expects them to nut on his face. I would expect that someone who ostensibly volunteered or was in the pool to review an FPS game had actually played them before. Though this might be another example of a console casual being useless without auto aim.

JC wrote:That's how my dad played the first time he used a twin-stick controller to play an FPS. This was many years after he played Doom and Wolfenstein when I was a kid but mostly preferred turn-based/real-time tactical games. I can't think of many people with even limited experience with video games that would play like that let alone someone who is PAID to do so.

There's another part where he/she shoots a medical kit with a shotgun before missing his next shot at an enemy. And yeah, it's definitely on easy. I played the Beta a few weeks ago and it was pretty fun but I'll leave off a little while before I get it.

The best part? he shoots at the stationary med pack twice and misses the first time. 12:30, i believe, for that one, guys. It's a classic.

No, his sensitivity is too high, so he goes up close to actually hit somethig XD. Anyone who played ps2 games or Ps1 FPS knows that is a must technique, because the controller is not as good as today's controls.

The game sounds pretty 5/10 in dynamics so he was probably bored too, neger even tried to fix the setup, let alone get skills.

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@everyone

U_U btw I turn 27 tomorrow, any ideas in what to do on anniversary that will be spent almost entirely at university???? Maybe late night bar drinking alone and getting in a motorcycle gang fight...

Chico and the Man wrote:Felt like the reviewer from Polygon thought it would make the gameplay more exciting to get close up on the baddies to make the review vid more interesting?

Nah, there is no demonstration of competency at any point in the video. Its not like he was letting them get close, he just had no other option to reliably defeat them at range. You can see even the same player issues when he starts trying to snipe with a pistol.

No, his sensitivity is too high, so he goes up close to actually hit somethig XD. Anyone who played ps2 games or Ps1 FPS knows that is a must technique, because the controller is not as good as today's controls.

The game sounds pretty 5/10 in dynamics so he was probably bored too, neger even tried to fix the setup, let alone get skills.

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@everyone

U_U btw I turn 27 tomorrow, any ideas in what to do on anniversary that will be spent almost entirely at university???? Maybe late night bar drinking alone and getting in a motorcycle gang fight...I believe my college birthdays were mostly spent drunk, sometimes with friends, sometimes with a game I bought myself for the day, something decent to eat, and a good cigar if the weather was nice. A bottle of bulleit goes awesome with pretty much anything.

In Polygon's (very limited) defense, this isn't new. I ran a game mag back in the late 90s/early 00s, and you'd have cringed at the game-playing ability of most game 'journalists' even then.

The fact is, most game sites/mags hire either their friends or people who can, ostensibly, write (though the type of writer they hire nowadays is more like a desperate ape trying to, err, ape Hunter Thompson, rather than the game freaks of my era), with actually gaming ability being a distant ninth on the requirements checklist.

In the players defense, and without seeing the video, the pistol in DOOM 3 turned out to be the sniper weapon. It didn't have any randomization from the aimpoint, and so it had pinpoint accuracy, even though the damage was lame.

Well guess I will have to settle with somethig like that... My university friends already graduated, I am part of the leftover people. Not much of a whiskey guy, but if my dad was in... Then the bottle shall not be wasted!

I was thinking OUTBACK steakhouse at midnight hahahah and then wake up 6 AM to go to a high school for five hours, do some observing...Mannn it sucks having birthdays on wednesday.

ECM wrote:In Polygon's (very limited) defense, this isn't new. I ran a game mag back in the late 90s/early 00s, and you'd have cringed at the game-playing ability of most game 'journalists' even then.

The fact is, most game sites/mags hire either their friends or people who can, ostensibly, write (though the type of writer they hire nowadays is more like a desperate ape trying to, err, ape Hunter Thompson, rather than the game freaks of my era), with actually gaming ability being a distant ninth on the requirements checklist.

Which is part of GG's point. It's hard to cater to enthusiast's tastes if they are not themselves enthusiasts. As other's here have mentioned, they like hardcore strategy games. Someone who is really into fighter games is likely to find strategy games boring. A review written by them is not going to be relevant to strategy gamers.

In that scenario at least the theoretical reviewer likes to play games. Now take it one step further and have someone who doesn't like video games period review games. Boring and hard is going to be what comes to their minds most often. Their editor, if they are worth anything, are going to reject that line of thought. So, instead the writer is going to write about how they would like be friends with the enemies and ask why that isn't an option.

Equality rears it's ugly head again? Could be 40's? Nah, I have played better after a case and a fifth or two, when younger. As to game news, I just haven't read that for a long time. It's just sales for whoever is picking up whatever tab. Has been for a very long time. Sure, bringing broads in, to sleep around for tags, yeah... okay... that's probably more degraded. But only slightly.

If anyone here is a 4X Space Strategy buff I cannot recommend Stellaris enough. It's a recent release and the policies/traits of the "Commonwealth of Man" bring a tear to my eye. They get a happiness boost when you are at war. They turn a blind eye to Xenos enslavement.

The game has a war goal mechanic that encourages you to go out and raid outposts/bombard planets to force a surrender and thus achieve your stated goals. This is a hard core game that makes Civ look simple.

Depends on what you wanted. It follows the general pattern of the previous two games, which I liked a lot, so I liked this one well enough. A lot of the negativity was so over the top that I figured something else was going on. It's a community with a lot of geeks, so there's weaponized personality disorders to consider. I'm having fun, and that's all that matters to me.

I'm more of an RPG person, so I'm in VATS most of the time outside of manual sniping. I also like the settlement building. I play games to relax after work.

The FO4 GECK is near release and the mods have already flowing. Even the console versions are getting mod access which is interesting.

I definitely recommend the new Survival mode. No fast travel. Save only at beds. Hunger, thirst, diseases. Healing is slow. Combat is high damage both ways. You and enemies can kill one another quickly. I'm setting up minimal settlements for resources and operating out of those. Clear out and area and move shop to the next settlement.

Well I only play in the most ridiculously hard difficulties... Except Iron Man on X-Com. Ironman is too damn evil.

I played like the first hour of the game, Fallout 4, so I was worried they ruined it completely, you know, like they do wih every good game from the 90's. I love the isometric version and the new 3D takes, solid games all around but I am not an RPG buff so any shitty RPG systems to me sound a-ok, cuz I can't really the difference between good stuff and bad stuff on that issue

I am a tactical-shooter kind of guy, the lost and extinct breed of shooter fans. So when I play fallout, it is all about the shooting XD. VATS was a pretty damn cool take in trying to use the old system in a "real-time" game, but I just couldn't use it because of mine self punishment gaming behavior hhaahahah.

4X games... Now that is a type of game I could neger play, don't have the skills to play Age of Empires properly, let alone 4X.

Was never great. I've seen great with my jaw dropped in awe, but I usually stayed in the middle of the pack score wise and sometimes won a level or two in public server deathmatches back in the Quake III days, and Quake Live before it stopped working on my ancient OS and hardware.

My favorite is still was Quake I (original, not re-boot) CTF with grappling hook mod......woo hoo, I'm spider man with a rocket launcher.....good times.

Ingot9455 wrote:In the players defense, and without seeing the video, the pistol in DOOM 3 turned out to be the sniper weapon. It didn't have any randomization from the aimpoint, and so it had pinpoint accuracy, even though the damage was lame.

If you haven't watched the video, why do you expect your defense to be any help?

You're not helping, so don't. Then watch the video and laugh at the inept play.

You can tell the player can only handle one action at a time - move, change aim, shoot. Strafe and shoot only happens to be the core gameplay mechanic of DOOM ...

Imagine a professional driver who doesn't know how to use the brake or the steering wheel. And now he's going to show off the newest Ford Mustang by driving it onto the curb and backing into a tree ...

I was quite young when Quake III came out, never got to play in it online despite already being pro players in the country. Played thousands of hours of Counter-Strike though, same engine... Errr ok, updated version of the Quake Engine. Still play the Global Offense

Actually I think I wasted 8000 hours of my life playing games and didn't even got rich doing it T_T

But hey Patrick, maybe you should give a try at Halo, the combat is totally different but it is fast paced as Quake used to be, it might bring back those gaming muscles in your hand and brains hehehehe

I'm not a first person shooter guy but some years ago was able to on regular setting having not touched a video game in nearly a decade, play well enough to give the regulars headaches in a LAN game. Granted Doom 1 but still controls aren't that hard.

As for people Fallout 4. Its a lot like Fallout 3. Its power hungry though, GPU intensive. My rig runs hot but very stable.

The weapons are mostly ugly though the mod system is nice and unless you are into those type of games settlement building is boring.

I have Automaton but haven't messed with it yet.

Personal opinion, its worth the money, I'm having fun with it but it doesn't have the replay value of Skyrim or New Vegas.

Also you play "their guy" to a much higher degree than in other games.

That is programming hungry XD. It simply asks too much of your rig. Here let me tell ya what to do to fix that temperature thingy.

Get MSI after burner latest edition, install it and when using it go straight the RivaTuner and set the Frame per Seconds at 60 and lower it as necessary. Most game waste too much GPU time with useless stuff so if you set the FPS to 50-40 the GPU will run much cooler and hence will live longer. Most of these games are made for 30 FPS in a console so the PC version is usually poopy.

I mean face facts, back when Vox was doing reviews he was one the few gamers who could actually write.

In the early days, I remember a typical review would be something along the lines of, "This is a good game. I like it very much. And then there would be five pages of technical data with random punctuation.

So it was understandable that 1990s editors decided to hire writers and try and teach them how to play games.

The downside to that was that they were writers at heart.

Consequently they would give rave reviews to crappy games that had a good story line.

They don't need to business this way anymore but they still do.

Meanwhile guys like Totalbiscuit have drastically gained more street cred.

Who pays attention to Polygon and Kotaku? How are they even in business at this point?

I mean face facts, back when Vox was doing reviews he was one the few gamers who could actually write.

In the early days, I remember a typical review would be something along the lines of, "This is a good game. I like it very much. And then there would be five pages of technical data with random punctuation.

So it was understandable that 1990s editors decided to hire writers and try and teach them how to play games.

The downside to that was that they were writers at heart.

Consequently they would give rave reviews to crappy games that had a good story line.

They don't need to business this way anymore but they still do.

Meanwhile guys like Totalbiscuit have drastically gained more street cred.

Who pays attention to Polygon and Kotaku? How are they even in business at this point?

Mannnn, checked TotalBiscuit's Wikipedia just to find the dude has cancer! My goodness man... Is horrible.

Remeber him not long ago doing a interview with the creator of Insterstellar Marines. I wonder if it is related with DHT levels in his body, I mean he is already pretty bald, and cancer and DHT are related...

That being said man, Kotaku and Polygon... And freaking IGN should hurl themselves of a building... Ou take gamespot with you.

The only thing cool about those sites is the game list and some funny reviews, other than that is just ... Weird. Oh and biased we cant forget that!

I enjoy the occasional fps, so I'm a casual in the genre. And I'm 49, so I'm passed the reflex prime. I usually do okay, on the top part of the post match stat lists.

Wow that game reviewer was horrific. I was blaming it on drugs first. Had to be drugs. Out of his mind from the start to the upload. Nobody in their right mind would have allowed that thing to see the light of day.

I like loading it up with two of my sons in a division... me and my oldest running cruisers and the second oldest running a carrier. We slink off together and coordinate... generally raising all manner of hell.

What is not to like? The Grind is a over the Top but that is the complaint of people that don't like the game.

@62 Eduardo U_U btw I turn 27 tomorrow, any ideas in what to do on anniversary that will be spent almost entirely at university???? Maybe late night bar drinking alone and getting in a motorcycle gang fight...---

If you are at university, get really drunk and go to every place you can find and make fun of SJWs in their faces. Please record video on your cell phone.

Star Conflict is another good one - basically WOT in space. Really good production values although it is not entirely sure what type of game it wants to be with a PvP (WOT) mode, a PvE for 4 players and an open world MMO lite type thing. I loved the PvP matches for a long time.

CGW's famous RPG reviewer and stalwart pundit was ScorpiA, not ScorpiO.

Scorpia. She legally changed her name to that, in fact. I confirmed this when, years back, I had the good fortune to meet her and play Call of Cthulhu with her group. I was also a regular member of her GEnie GamesRT and weekly chat groups. Damn, how I miss CGW and the Beige Box days.

I remember your byline as well, Vox. When I first heard about you in regard to The Puppyning, I wondered "Is it the same fellow?" Surprise, surprise... so it is.

Absolutely loved SJWAL, btw. I consider it essential reading in these lunatic times. Next up will be Irrational Atheist, which should be interesting reading for an Atheist such as myself.

I like how he constantly shoots when the reticle is inches away from what he wants to hit. Just curious but is there a technical term for when you prematurely pull the trigger before you get the gun on target? And btw there's a funny example of that in Punisher: War Zone.